Video - Senate Testimony - Mar. 17, 2011
Higginbottom is a political appointee with no budget experience who should not be confirmed under any circumstances. However, Sessions fails to mention that Republicans don't have the guts to cut spending either, except for Rand Paul.
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Text from youtube -- The Budget Committee considers the nomination of Heather Higginbottom as President Obama's deputy budget director. Sen. Sessions confronted the nominee over false assertions from the White House regarding the president's budget. Both President Obama and his budget director have repeatedly said that the president's budget allows us to "live within our means," "spend money that we have each year," and "begin paying down our debt." Numerous fact-check organizations have found these statements to be false, (http://goo.gl/ZuitF) and Sessions has argued that these inaccurate claims undermine efforts to confront our growing fiscal crisis. In reality, the budget that President Obama submitted adds $13 trillion to the debt, never has a deficit less than $600 billion, and spends more than it takes in every single year. And by the tenth year, interest payments on our debt will rise to $844 billion--more than we spend on Medicare or defense.
Note: Ms. Higginbottom, a former advisor for Obama's presidential campaign, has no formal budget training or experience.
UPDATE 3/18: CBO released its analysis of the president's budget today, finding that the Obama proposal actually conceals $2.3 trillion in deficits. Using more realistic economic assumptions than the White House used, total deficits over the next decade will reach $9.5 trillion. (http://1.usa.gov/fTc9lT)
Partial transcript:
HH: Senator, I think if we’re trying to lay a responsible fiscal path coming out of this severe economic downturn, then one of the first things we have to do is to stop digging into the hole with the programs we’re proposing and funding.
JS: Does this budget do that?
HH: The budget provides a path to ensure –
JS: Does the budget do that? I don’t know what a path means. In ten years, does it do what you said?
HH: Does it not add to the debt?
JS: Let’s take the last three years of the President’s ten year budget. Do the deficits go down those years eight, nine, and ten, or does it go up in eight, nine, and ten?
HH: I don’t have the deficit table in front of me –
JS: Well, that’s an important matter. I know what they basically say.
HH: The President’s budget reduces the deficit, takes it to about $600 billion and stabilizes it, but as I –
JS: No, it doesn’t stabilize it. In years 8, 9, and 10, it goes up every year and reaches approximately nine hundred billion from six hundred billion.
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Further reading: